On June 16, 2022, at 7:58 a.m, I turned around to leave the classroom to get children off the bus to start the day, and I slammed my knee into a metal cabinet handle. It was immediate pain, there was not even that one second for it to sink in, it was just pain. I immediately doubled over, and it felt like I was not going to be able to walk. My TA gawked at me with sympathy and asked if I was okay, to which I gave a very light I think so, but there was no time to take inventory other than the fact that my knee was in searing pain. I had to get the children.
The rest of that day was not great, it hurt to sit down and stand up, and to walk. All around not good, especially considering that I spend a majority of the day moving around. Nonetheless, I am pretty good at pushing through despite pain, and again at work, there is not much of another option for me, but running at night is a different story. I am in full on control of that. So despite the pain during walking, it was Thursday, so I had to go to track club. It would have been an easy enough one to skip and rest the knee, because it was storming, and the lightning was insane. I went anyway.
A little after six Jerry canceled the workout, another sign that I should probably just go home and rest, skip the run for the day, but I waited. Ten minutes later the torrential down pour and lightning storm all but evaporated, and I went for a run. I started out with the group that stuck it out, but they were just going on an easy run, and well it is Thursday, and Thursdays are workout days, and Boilermaker was approaching fast, so I peeled off. I did a ton of hill repeats and would do longer reps between hill sessions around round lake. My knee was not happy, but it was not terrible. Ten and a half miles later I was done, and my knee felt done too. I did not think too much of it.
The next day I got up early and did my eight prework miles, and I was limping, but I have a hard time getting loosened up some mornings especially after a later workout, so again. I did not think too much of it. Then after work, I made the great decision of eking out two more miles. Saturday, I got up and did 17 miles while on Advil, so I felt good, but probably not the best choice to limit my body’s ability to listen to itself. So Sunday was the first day that I really felt the pain, and I felt it early in the run, but instead of turning around and going home, I got the 12 miles I needed to get to 70 for the week, and as I went along, I pushed harder and harder to get it done, so that the pain would be gone. Again, it hurt, but I was not too concerned about it.
Monday I was off from work, and when I went to run that morning, I made it a little over half a mile, and it felt like a nail was being driven into the top of my knee, and I thought that Monday was my light day, so might as well call it a day, and I will rest my knee, and it will be better tomorrow. Tuesday I ran 8 miles, and it was painful. I did not do a workout, because when I tried to do my first stride it hurt more, but regular running did not feel that great either, but I pushed on anyways. Wednesday, I ran 8 more miles, and again it did not go well. I could not push myself at all, but I pushed through the pain, which were warning signs I should have listened to. Finally on Thursday, I ran a little over a mile before giving up because the pain was intense.
It has been over a week since then, and I have not gone on a full run since then. From Friday to Sunday, I did not even try to run, I was sick, and my knee hurt, and I was all around miserable. On that Saturday, I was feeling normal, and I thought that Sunday I would be ready to go, but when I woke up Sunday, my knee hurt, so I knew it would go poorly, but I gave it the old college try, and I made it maybe one hundred feet before I was done. Everyday since then, I have started my day with trying to run, and I do not think I have made it over a quarter of a mile before my knee starts to hurt. It is better than when it was at its worst, but it seems like there is a long way to go still. (Update on July 4th, (This was written on July 1st) On the third, I made it about half a mile, doubling where I had been, and today I made it a mile! Then I did a squat to pick something up, and I felt it hard in my knee… so who knows.)
On top of all that, the Monday after I got hurt, I got sick. It started out slow. It just felt like something was stuck deep in my throat, and it was not too bad, but from that point until Friday, it slowly started to rage inside of me, and its mucussy tendrils spread throughout my body. My lungs were wrecked and filled to the brim with mucus. Each morning I was like a cat with a hair ball, and instead of coughing up hair, I was hacking up large chunks of mucus. It has been close to two weeks of being sick, and the amount of mucus I have coughed up or blown out of my nose must weigh close to my body weight.
The past few days, I have leveled out. It is not nearly as bad as it was, but at this point I am not improving or getting worst. I still get up every day with my lungs partially reloaded and my nose stuffed, and there are parts of the day when I feel like it is all gone, and I am home free, then a few hours later, a new coughing fit starts, and I cough something else up, and then one of my nostrils feels stuffed, and I cannot breathe out of it anymore. So the mucus has been bad, clearly, but some of my coughing fits have been intense. So much so that it has felt like I have given myself multiple concussion. My brain is seriously rattling around inside my skull, and it has led to some serious headaches. I might have CTE after this… One coughing fit was so bad, that it felt like one of my ab muscles was cramping up and going to explode. At least make it hurt all of the ab muscles, so I can be getting a full workout of it!
This past week I have been off from work as a beginning of summer starter. I have to work a six-week summer session once this week ends, then I get three more weeks off at the end of summer. So this was literally the worst week to be physically and health wise destroyed. I should have been able to run my heart out and felt at peace. Instead, I have been trying to walk out my feelings of despair, but this has largely been a failure. There is a sense of relief that comes from running, it feels like my head literally feels lighter and my mood feels brighter, but walking does not have the same effect. Sure it loosens up some endorphins, but it is not nearly the same, and even the days where I am really putting in the miles walking, it just does not hit the same.
I have had one decent day on my break walking wise, and that was Thursday. I got up, did my walking, and I worked out at the gym. Then I took my stuff and left for the day at like 10:30. First I went to Fleet Feet, and I tried on some new running shoes, and I finally used my winnings from the Run for Recovery and got some new shoes. Then I went to Green Lakes and played their nine-hole frisbee golf course. Then someone else came, who looked serious, and I had never played frisbee golf before, so I took my stuff and went for a hike. After a few miles, I came back, and he was still playing, but the opening hole was open, so I started another round, and while I was doing that round, he finished his last thankfully, because he was pretty incredible (not that I would know, I have never played before). I felt embarrassed when I saw him through, and I would try to time my throws, so that he was not looking. I did another nine holes for 27 holes on the day. I did okay, but most importantly it was fun. It did lead to a surprisingly sore shoulder the next day.
After that I ate lunch and headed to the movies. I watched the new Minions movie, which was bad, but it did make me laugh a few times, so that was a bonus, then I walked from the mall to downtown, and I ate a whole large pizza at Nick’s Tomato Pie, and then walked back to the mall. Overall for the day, I have over 25,000 steps, and I felt like I had actually done something physically, which I cannot say much for on the other days of the break. Throughout this day, I also basically read all of The Alchemist, a book that was assigned as summer reading when I was in tenth grade, and it was amazing. It was about a boy who followed his dreams despite being thrown many obstacles, and it paid off. The main point was that many people give up on their dreams and what they should actually be doing in life, and they settle for less.
This can be a very crisis provoking book. I read it in tenth grade, but none of its message sunk in then, but when I was reading it now, I started to question every decision I had made starting with what college I decided to go to. Not to say that the choices I made were wrong, or that I am unhappy, but there are a ton of things in life I love doing, so it is a dangerous book, because it can make you think maybe you picked the wrong thing, and you are not “following your personal legend” and you will be left unhappy in your later years. It was supposed to be a motivating book, but it is also a serious self-doubt book depending on who you are.
I also finished reading the Scott Jurek book, Eat and Run. Another terrible book to read while injured. His motto is, “Sometimes you just do things.” It is very hard to do things when you are injured, and often times it is a bad idea to do things when injured, because that will just make it worst. Also he is an ultramarathoner, and any time I read books like this, I am ready to go do a one hundred mile race myself, but I can not even run one mile, so how am I supposed to do that. I am getting all this inspiration from reading, but it is not going anywhere. It is beyond frustrating.
Amazingly enough besides being slightly more bored than usual, I have been able to keep my head mostly up. I am doing a lot of walking, and I am working out a little more. I was very surprised at how much walking has affected my glute muscles. I still have to stretch and roll to stay fresh otherwise the walk the next day is slightly painful. The problem is when the sun goes down. Since I am not running, I am not burning as much energy, so I am not as ready for bed at night. I am also using this time to try and hype myself up, and I tell myself, tomorrow is the day, I will wake up and magically be able to run at least a mile. Then I will be at least okay to run the Boilermaker by Saturday, because at this point, I am not even worried about racing it, I just want to run it and enjoy the run. One thing is for sure, that once I am able to run again, I will be much more thankful for it. Just like Scot Jurek, I think there is something universally connecting about running that makes you more in tune with the world, and I feel so disconnected, and I am just ready to hear the pitter patter of my feet again.
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